Vapor phase combustion at high temperature is notorious for generating a nitrogen oxide, NOx, which always causes a noxious pollution hazard. Furthermore, during the vapor phase combustion, a large portion of the thermal energy is lost through the chimney effect. On the other hand, a catalytic oxidation is a much cleaner type of combustion without yielding nitrogen oxides. However, the catalytic oxidation generally takes a long induction period to initiate the reaction until its exothermic reaction heat can provide enough activation energy to sustain its continuous auto-oxidation. Thus, it often needs to preheat the fuel to a high temperature for shortening the induction period thereof. As a result, the catalytic oxidation reaction is difficult to be used as a heating method for supplying heat to an industrial reactor or facilities due to the fact that the conventional oxidation catalyst is not reactive enough to increase the temperature of the fuel from the ambient temperature to the desired high temperature in a very short period of time, for example, 10 to 30 minutes.
Consequently, it will need a reactive oxidation catalyst capable of being heated up from the room temperature to the desired high temperature in a very short time, for example, 10 to 30 minutes, so that the catalytic oxidation catalyst can be used for an industrial reactor or facilities. That means the catalyst must be able to start a reactor to its desired reaction temperature in a short period of time without external heating source or facility.
Because the defects in the prior art and the demands for a future application of the catalytic combustion, the present invention discloses a method and a substance for rapidly catalyzing the combustion in a short time. Therefore, the combustion can be completed in a rapid and clean way.